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d£ cinfCORP times
March Breaks Winter Bummer
STAFF WRITTEN
March is one 01 those months when everything seems to explode into a whole
new and bright picture. It is only natural that, following the winter doldrums
of January and February, something's got to be happening. This month's got
it all together-Easter's early (March 30), not to mention Spring comes the
third week (one of those dates so far not tampered with by politicians) and
the good Saint Patrick will find more Irishmen and one day Irish willing to an-nilate
themselves in booze than he-ever found snakes on the'ould sod.
It seems almost overwhelming. Take these events for just one day, March
The dinner theaters will lure you through Opera House. They open on March 25th
9th: Dizzy Gillespie at the Smithsonian, Jean-Pierre Rampell at the Kennedy
Concert Hall at 3:00, Catfish Hodge at the Childe Harold, Ingrid Bergman at
the Opera House, Bruce Springsteen at Constitution Hall, the Boston Pops in
the Concert Hall at 8:30, a lecture on 18th century music at the National Gal-lery,
a 5 o'clock piano recital by Martin Berkofsky at the Phillips Gallery, the
Portable Pioneer and Prairie Show at Ford's, "Carmen" will be presented at
Montgomery College, "Julius Cesar" is given a splendid performance at Arena,
"Big Bad Mouse" plays the National and two excellent comedies are at the
Last Colony.
the evening (some have matinees) with
"Damn Yankees" at Burn Brae, "Stop the
World" at Colony 7, "90 Day Mistress" at
Mosby, "Susy Finkel" at Hayloft, "Guys
and Dolls" at Saratoga, "Painmaker" at
Lazy Susan, "Purlie Victorious" at Cedar
Knoll, "Pajama Tops" at Villa Rosa, "The
Boy Friend" at Harleguin, "The Wayward
Stork" at the Garland, and lord knows
what-all.
. Some very important shows are an-nounced
at the area's art galleries and
March 9th is also a hot day for them:
The Corcoan has their 34th annual'
exhibit of American painters, there's a
William Dunlop 1-man show at Adams,
Davidson, Willem de Looper is at two gal-leries,
Phillips and Max Protech, Gallery
10 has a non-traditional show with lots
of playing around, The National Portrait
Gallery is into early American painters and
subjects, and the National Gallery is show-ing
the Chinese art exhibit to packed
houses. Try the Smithsonian or the Library
of Congress for unusual arts displays, and
by all means the Phillips for both a fine
showing of Willem de Looper as well as a
piano recital by Martin Berkofsky.
In addition to all this, there's experi-mental
theatre going on at the George
Spelvin (Who is H. L. Mencken?) Experi-mental
Theatre in Bethesda and there must
be thousands of community theatre groups
doing their thing on this day of days.
Now this day is just for openers. There
were eight good days preceeding it and
there will be 21 days afterwards. You'll
need the warm-up and a bank loan.
For nostalgia fans, Clyde McCoy plays
Summit Manor March 5 thru 8, On March
8th at 3:00 pianist James Mathis played at •
the Concert Hall, and the night before in thl
same hall, the Strasbourg Philharmonic with
Jean-Bernard Ponnier, pianist, plans an
evening with Faure, Saint-Saens and Ber-loiz.
"Hamlet" is rightfully examined by
the Shakespeare Theatre at 814 20th, N.W.
on the 7th and 8th and again the 14th and
15th.
On March 12th a magnificent perfor-mance
of "Of Mice and Men" opens at The
Eisenhower, and that same night the Cham-ber
Music ensemble of the National Sym-phony
plays the concert hall. On the 13th
the Choral Arts Society will present an
evening of Bach "Brandenberg Concerto"
and Stravinsky's "Wedding". Carlos Bar-bosa-
Lima, classical guitarist, will be at the I
Smithsonian on the 14th at 8:30. On March
15th Miles Davis will do his thing at Consti-tution
Hall and, at the same time, for classi-cists,
the Chamber Music Society of Lincolr
Center will make the weekend at the Con-cert
Hall.
And man, you ain't seen nothing yet. I
At Ford's Theater a revival of Moss Hart's
"Light Up the Sky" will replace the "Por-table"
thing on March 18th. And perhaps
the entire preceeding is just prologue to the
fact that the Circus comes to town March
19th. When the Circus comes, can Spring
be far behind?
Not too long, for two days later when
Spring does arrive, Van Cliburn arrives at
the Concert Hall and the next day at the
same spot four of the Met's best singers
will do a concert of arias under the title
of Metropolitan Opera Quartet.
In any other month, the artistic event
of the moon rise would be the appearance
of Balanchine's New York City Ballet who
will present a magnificent program at the
and will play through Sunday April 6.
Paul Taylor's Dance troup also appears at
this time and will have the additional ad-vantage
for local dancers of giving master
classes plus open rehearsals. There will be
DICK £ SUSY BIGELOW
By Nick Evers
The Washington theatre scene, like all
artistic communities, has its cliques and
schisms. The great body of people involved
in the theatre are those who appear in the
community theatres, largely in suburbia,
from time to time as whimsy strikes them.
This ranges to those who appear at Arena
in highly polished productions, and most
of these have had their tickets punched in
New York. The great body of working
professionals play the dinner theatre cir-cuit,
are non-equity, and are, as Burns Man-tle
used to say in capital letters, "Striving
Young Hopefuls."
A few weeks ago I traveled the dinner
theatre circuit and saw a number of plays
ate a number of free meals, and saw a var-iety
of talent. The best of the talent I saw
was the young husband and wife team of
Dick and Susy Schneider Bigelow. This un-qualified
best for the team came at the ex-pense
of equity personnel imported from
New York. They are good, they are tal-ented
and trained, and they have respect
for the theatre and prepared for their roles.
One should not rate actors, of course, on a
competitive basis as at a black angus show.
However, a theatre writer cannot help preen-ing
himself when he believes he has dis-covered
and is presenting great talent to
his readers.
Both Richard and Susan Schneider Bige-low
were University of Maryland drama
school trainees. Suzy dropped out when
she had gotten, she believes, all that college
had to offer in drama training. Richard took
his degree and then went back for graduate
courses in directing theatre. -
In a long rap at a College Park, Md.,
store, now going out of business, where they
have worked and managed, I asked Dick
what he was aiming at—what he envisioned
his career to be. "Administration," he
said, "Theatre administration. I'd like to
act now and again, particularly in musicals
which I believe to be my best talent. And
I like to direct. But full time I want to
administer a theatre—and particularly din-ner
theatre."
Despite only a decade of existence in
Washington, the concept of dinner theatre
is not particularly new. Surely at some of
the inns to which Shakespeare toured his
company, there was a snapping at the bones
and a lifting of the flagon while some poor
actor strutted and fretted. There is every
reason to believe the Greeks carried a basket
of bread and olives with a jug of resinous wine
wine to the ampitheatres. No, dinner thea-tre
is not new but it may be the salvation
of the theatre while the commuting mad-ness
reigns.
To expect the working members of the
family to come home, unwind with a couple
of martinis, over eat a meal and then crawl
out from behind the idiot box and out to
theatre, is sheer fantasy. Straight theatres
are lucky to have the audiences they do
and, today, even Broadway attracts only
the credit card set who must entertain the
out of town customers.
Dinner theatre, where a couple may
meet after work, nip at a cocktail, dine on
adequate food (usually a buffet) and see
an amusing play before it gets too late for
the baby sitter, is the modern solution to
suburban apathy. It is to this field that
Bigelow would address himself and this
brand of theatre would be lucky to get him.
I first saw the Bigelows at Colony 7 Din-ner
Theatre where they will end the run of
"Stop The World" in mid-March. They de-served
and they got a very good notice.
The direction of the play was very good
and this too was noted. Bigelow staged the
play. And let me state parenthetically,
that staging a play in the ridiculous limita-tions
of dinner theatre is not easy.
I was curious about them. How did they
escape the rather dreadful tricksy acting
that marks and scars dinner theatre? I
had seen two equity houses without a glim-mer
of fresh talent. I had seen non-equity
houses and where did the Bigelows come
from and where were they going to? With
the possible exception of Linda and Larry
Shue, they were also the best couple I had
seen—as well as individual talents.
Susan played on the main stage at Md.
U. as Blanche in "Streetcar", Dulcie in
"The Boyfriend" and Lady Ann in "Richarc
III" and in the experimental theatre as
Gloria in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's
Window" and a number of scenes from
"Pigmalion" as Eliza. With these presti-gious
academic credits, she made the dinner
theatre circuit with roles like Annie Oakley
in "Annie Get Your Gun", Nelly Forbush
in "South Pacific", Hope Harcourt in "Any
thing Goes", Helena in Sweet Charity"
Mrs. Mallow in "Hello Dolly" and, of
course, Evie in "Stop The World."
Dick, with sturdy male chauvinism, ig-nored
listing college credits and gave me
these: Don Quixote in "Man from La Man-cha",
Cocky in "Roar of the Greasepaint",
George in "Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Lt. Cable in "South Pacific", Billy (Would
you believe?) Bigelow in "Carousel", Char-lie
Davenport in "Annie Get Your Gun",
El Gallo in "Fantasticks", Chuck in "Pro-mises,
Promises" and now Little Chap in
"Stop The World."
One wonders, with talents like these
and the Shues and probably others, why
don't dinner theatres use billing in the ad-vertisements?
The Bigelows could draw on
their name as well as, for recent examples,
Ray Walston and Rosemary Prinz.
Off stage, the Bigelows are an engaging
young couple to talk with. An interviewer
immediately falls into the trop of talking
too much. Is there anything so flattering
as a good listener? However, between my
own words, I found that Susy was very
glad to find a new apartment between
Bowie and Laurel and that Dick is a pro-fessional
football fan of some length of
memory. He is- a Sonny Jurgensen addict
but without prejudice against Billy Kilmer.
He can remember the Jurgensen days when
he and Tommy MacDonald kept the Phila-
See BIGELOW on Paqe 8
a twitching of the leotards this Spring.
With Easter coming March 30, no one
would want to miss the Bach "Mass in B
Minor" March 28 by the Oratorio Society
of Washington at the Concert Hall. And
on Saturday Quincy Jones will play in con-cert
at Constitution Hall.
Now, with the bread left over, plan for
April early. If you can present evidence
that you've caught each of the above men-tioned
events, the Unicorn Times make a
gracious presentation of a full week, ex-pense
paid, tour of downtown Burgaw,
North Carolina.
Irish Music
For St. Pat's
by Jesse Winch
Once again, St. Patrick's day will be
upon us (Monday, March 17th), and, as
you might expect, Irish music will be in '
great supply-not just in the pubs, but on
college campuses, in parish halls and even
on the street.
In less than a year, a couple of new
Irish pubs have opened in the Washington
area. They will be providing Irish music
especially on the weekend nearest St. Pat-rick's
day: Friday, March 14th to Monday
March 17th.
The Dubliner, on F. St. near Union Sta-tion,
is.presenting by far the finest tradi-tional
and original Irish instrumental music
that you'll near anywhere. Fiddler Brendan
Mulvihill, at 21, last year's all-Ireland fidd-ling
champ plays there, as does Irish accor-dian
player Bill McComisky, 23, a past
runner-up in the all-Ireland accordian com-petition.
They're both at the Dubliner Tues-day
through Sunday with guitarist-singer
Andy O'Brien who completes their trio.
Matt Kane's Bit O'Ireland, certainly
not one of the newer clubs, will feature the
return of the Belfast Bards. They will be at
Kane's from March 4th through the 20th,
Tuesday through Saturday. Getting into
Kane's around St. Patrick's day generally
isn't very easy, since it's usually over-crowded.
The Tara House, at the site of the old
"Cave" in the alley behind 19th St. near
M St., N.W., will feature the Corcoran Bro-thers
from March 3rd right up to the 17th.
They will also feature two championship
Irish step-dancers on the 16th and 17th as
well as some Cefli dance music (a Ceili is a
See IRISH on Page 10

d£ cinfCORP times
March Breaks Winter Bummer
STAFF WRITTEN
March is one 01 those months when everything seems to explode into a whole
new and bright picture. It is only natural that, following the winter doldrums
of January and February, something's got to be happening. This month's got
it all together-Easter's early (March 30), not to mention Spring comes the
third week (one of those dates so far not tampered with by politicians) and
the good Saint Patrick will find more Irishmen and one day Irish willing to an-nilate
themselves in booze than he-ever found snakes on the'ould sod.
It seems almost overwhelming. Take these events for just one day, March
The dinner theaters will lure you through Opera House. They open on March 25th
9th: Dizzy Gillespie at the Smithsonian, Jean-Pierre Rampell at the Kennedy
Concert Hall at 3:00, Catfish Hodge at the Childe Harold, Ingrid Bergman at
the Opera House, Bruce Springsteen at Constitution Hall, the Boston Pops in
the Concert Hall at 8:30, a lecture on 18th century music at the National Gal-lery,
a 5 o'clock piano recital by Martin Berkofsky at the Phillips Gallery, the
Portable Pioneer and Prairie Show at Ford's, "Carmen" will be presented at
Montgomery College, "Julius Cesar" is given a splendid performance at Arena,
"Big Bad Mouse" plays the National and two excellent comedies are at the
Last Colony.
the evening (some have matinees) with
"Damn Yankees" at Burn Brae, "Stop the
World" at Colony 7, "90 Day Mistress" at
Mosby, "Susy Finkel" at Hayloft, "Guys
and Dolls" at Saratoga, "Painmaker" at
Lazy Susan, "Purlie Victorious" at Cedar
Knoll, "Pajama Tops" at Villa Rosa, "The
Boy Friend" at Harleguin, "The Wayward
Stork" at the Garland, and lord knows
what-all.
. Some very important shows are an-nounced
at the area's art galleries and
March 9th is also a hot day for them:
The Corcoan has their 34th annual'
exhibit of American painters, there's a
William Dunlop 1-man show at Adams,
Davidson, Willem de Looper is at two gal-leries,
Phillips and Max Protech, Gallery
10 has a non-traditional show with lots
of playing around, The National Portrait
Gallery is into early American painters and
subjects, and the National Gallery is show-ing
the Chinese art exhibit to packed
houses. Try the Smithsonian or the Library
of Congress for unusual arts displays, and
by all means the Phillips for both a fine
showing of Willem de Looper as well as a
piano recital by Martin Berkofsky.
In addition to all this, there's experi-mental
theatre going on at the George
Spelvin (Who is H. L. Mencken?) Experi-mental
Theatre in Bethesda and there must
be thousands of community theatre groups
doing their thing on this day of days.
Now this day is just for openers. There
were eight good days preceeding it and
there will be 21 days afterwards. You'll
need the warm-up and a bank loan.
For nostalgia fans, Clyde McCoy plays
Summit Manor March 5 thru 8, On March
8th at 3:00 pianist James Mathis played at •
the Concert Hall, and the night before in thl
same hall, the Strasbourg Philharmonic with
Jean-Bernard Ponnier, pianist, plans an
evening with Faure, Saint-Saens and Ber-loiz.
"Hamlet" is rightfully examined by
the Shakespeare Theatre at 814 20th, N.W.
on the 7th and 8th and again the 14th and
15th.
On March 12th a magnificent perfor-mance
of "Of Mice and Men" opens at The
Eisenhower, and that same night the Cham-ber
Music ensemble of the National Sym-phony
plays the concert hall. On the 13th
the Choral Arts Society will present an
evening of Bach "Brandenberg Concerto"
and Stravinsky's "Wedding". Carlos Bar-bosa-
Lima, classical guitarist, will be at the I
Smithsonian on the 14th at 8:30. On March
15th Miles Davis will do his thing at Consti-tution
Hall and, at the same time, for classi-cists,
the Chamber Music Society of Lincolr
Center will make the weekend at the Con-cert
Hall.
And man, you ain't seen nothing yet. I
At Ford's Theater a revival of Moss Hart's
"Light Up the Sky" will replace the "Por-table"
thing on March 18th. And perhaps
the entire preceeding is just prologue to the
fact that the Circus comes to town March
19th. When the Circus comes, can Spring
be far behind?
Not too long, for two days later when
Spring does arrive, Van Cliburn arrives at
the Concert Hall and the next day at the
same spot four of the Met's best singers
will do a concert of arias under the title
of Metropolitan Opera Quartet.
In any other month, the artistic event
of the moon rise would be the appearance
of Balanchine's New York City Ballet who
will present a magnificent program at the
and will play through Sunday April 6.
Paul Taylor's Dance troup also appears at
this time and will have the additional ad-vantage
for local dancers of giving master
classes plus open rehearsals. There will be
DICK £ SUSY BIGELOW
By Nick Evers
The Washington theatre scene, like all
artistic communities, has its cliques and
schisms. The great body of people involved
in the theatre are those who appear in the
community theatres, largely in suburbia,
from time to time as whimsy strikes them.
This ranges to those who appear at Arena
in highly polished productions, and most
of these have had their tickets punched in
New York. The great body of working
professionals play the dinner theatre cir-cuit,
are non-equity, and are, as Burns Man-tle
used to say in capital letters, "Striving
Young Hopefuls."
A few weeks ago I traveled the dinner
theatre circuit and saw a number of plays
ate a number of free meals, and saw a var-iety
of talent. The best of the talent I saw
was the young husband and wife team of
Dick and Susy Schneider Bigelow. This un-qualified
best for the team came at the ex-pense
of equity personnel imported from
New York. They are good, they are tal-ented
and trained, and they have respect
for the theatre and prepared for their roles.
One should not rate actors, of course, on a
competitive basis as at a black angus show.
However, a theatre writer cannot help preen-ing
himself when he believes he has dis-covered
and is presenting great talent to
his readers.
Both Richard and Susan Schneider Bige-low
were University of Maryland drama
school trainees. Suzy dropped out when
she had gotten, she believes, all that college
had to offer in drama training. Richard took
his degree and then went back for graduate
courses in directing theatre. -
In a long rap at a College Park, Md.,
store, now going out of business, where they
have worked and managed, I asked Dick
what he was aiming at—what he envisioned
his career to be. "Administration," he
said, "Theatre administration. I'd like to
act now and again, particularly in musicals
which I believe to be my best talent. And
I like to direct. But full time I want to
administer a theatre—and particularly din-ner
theatre."
Despite only a decade of existence in
Washington, the concept of dinner theatre
is not particularly new. Surely at some of
the inns to which Shakespeare toured his
company, there was a snapping at the bones
and a lifting of the flagon while some poor
actor strutted and fretted. There is every
reason to believe the Greeks carried a basket
of bread and olives with a jug of resinous wine
wine to the ampitheatres. No, dinner thea-tre
is not new but it may be the salvation
of the theatre while the commuting mad-ness
reigns.
To expect the working members of the
family to come home, unwind with a couple
of martinis, over eat a meal and then crawl
out from behind the idiot box and out to
theatre, is sheer fantasy. Straight theatres
are lucky to have the audiences they do
and, today, even Broadway attracts only
the credit card set who must entertain the
out of town customers.
Dinner theatre, where a couple may
meet after work, nip at a cocktail, dine on
adequate food (usually a buffet) and see
an amusing play before it gets too late for
the baby sitter, is the modern solution to
suburban apathy. It is to this field that
Bigelow would address himself and this
brand of theatre would be lucky to get him.
I first saw the Bigelows at Colony 7 Din-ner
Theatre where they will end the run of
"Stop The World" in mid-March. They de-served
and they got a very good notice.
The direction of the play was very good
and this too was noted. Bigelow staged the
play. And let me state parenthetically,
that staging a play in the ridiculous limita-tions
of dinner theatre is not easy.
I was curious about them. How did they
escape the rather dreadful tricksy acting
that marks and scars dinner theatre? I
had seen two equity houses without a glim-mer
of fresh talent. I had seen non-equity
houses and where did the Bigelows come
from and where were they going to? With
the possible exception of Linda and Larry
Shue, they were also the best couple I had
seen—as well as individual talents.
Susan played on the main stage at Md.
U. as Blanche in "Streetcar", Dulcie in
"The Boyfriend" and Lady Ann in "Richarc
III" and in the experimental theatre as
Gloria in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's
Window" and a number of scenes from
"Pigmalion" as Eliza. With these presti-gious
academic credits, she made the dinner
theatre circuit with roles like Annie Oakley
in "Annie Get Your Gun", Nelly Forbush
in "South Pacific", Hope Harcourt in "Any
thing Goes", Helena in Sweet Charity"
Mrs. Mallow in "Hello Dolly" and, of
course, Evie in "Stop The World."
Dick, with sturdy male chauvinism, ig-nored
listing college credits and gave me
these: Don Quixote in "Man from La Man-cha",
Cocky in "Roar of the Greasepaint",
George in "Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Lt. Cable in "South Pacific", Billy (Would
you believe?) Bigelow in "Carousel", Char-lie
Davenport in "Annie Get Your Gun",
El Gallo in "Fantasticks", Chuck in "Pro-mises,
Promises" and now Little Chap in
"Stop The World."
One wonders, with talents like these
and the Shues and probably others, why
don't dinner theatres use billing in the ad-vertisements?
The Bigelows could draw on
their name as well as, for recent examples,
Ray Walston and Rosemary Prinz.
Off stage, the Bigelows are an engaging
young couple to talk with. An interviewer
immediately falls into the trop of talking
too much. Is there anything so flattering
as a good listener? However, between my
own words, I found that Susy was very
glad to find a new apartment between
Bowie and Laurel and that Dick is a pro-fessional
football fan of some length of
memory. He is- a Sonny Jurgensen addict
but without prejudice against Billy Kilmer.
He can remember the Jurgensen days when
he and Tommy MacDonald kept the Phila-
See BIGELOW on Paqe 8
a twitching of the leotards this Spring.
With Easter coming March 30, no one
would want to miss the Bach "Mass in B
Minor" March 28 by the Oratorio Society
of Washington at the Concert Hall. And
on Saturday Quincy Jones will play in con-cert
at Constitution Hall.
Now, with the bread left over, plan for
April early. If you can present evidence
that you've caught each of the above men-tioned
events, the Unicorn Times make a
gracious presentation of a full week, ex-pense
paid, tour of downtown Burgaw,
North Carolina.
Irish Music
For St. Pat's
by Jesse Winch
Once again, St. Patrick's day will be
upon us (Monday, March 17th), and, as
you might expect, Irish music will be in '
great supply-not just in the pubs, but on
college campuses, in parish halls and even
on the street.
In less than a year, a couple of new
Irish pubs have opened in the Washington
area. They will be providing Irish music
especially on the weekend nearest St. Pat-rick's
day: Friday, March 14th to Monday
March 17th.
The Dubliner, on F. St. near Union Sta-tion,
is.presenting by far the finest tradi-tional
and original Irish instrumental music
that you'll near anywhere. Fiddler Brendan
Mulvihill, at 21, last year's all-Ireland fidd-ling
champ plays there, as does Irish accor-dian
player Bill McComisky, 23, a past
runner-up in the all-Ireland accordian com-petition.
They're both at the Dubliner Tues-day
through Sunday with guitarist-singer
Andy O'Brien who completes their trio.
Matt Kane's Bit O'Ireland, certainly
not one of the newer clubs, will feature the
return of the Belfast Bards. They will be at
Kane's from March 4th through the 20th,
Tuesday through Saturday. Getting into
Kane's around St. Patrick's day generally
isn't very easy, since it's usually over-crowded.
The Tara House, at the site of the old
"Cave" in the alley behind 19th St. near
M St., N.W., will feature the Corcoran Bro-thers
from March 3rd right up to the 17th.
They will also feature two championship
Irish step-dancers on the 16th and 17th as
well as some Cefli dance music (a Ceili is a
See IRISH on Page 10